We’re experiencing a cold snap in the UK at the moment and the evenings have been really quite chilly, brrr! I’m in the process of making a colourful granny square blanket, which is the perfect make for this time of year. However, as Halloween draws closer I really wanted to crochet some pumpkins. Luckily I was able to tuck into my yarn stash from the blanket, which will mean both makes will match beautifully once completed. Don’t you think the colours are just beautiful for this time of year?

These granny squares will eventually all be crocheted together to make the blanket you see above. I’ve been slowly working on them during the fortnightly crochet group in Bath, which I’ve been running for the past four years. They’re the perfect project to take along to a crochet group as they’re not too technically demanding (and can of course be paused for the odd bite of cake and sip of warm hot chocolate!)

The date of our last crochet group happened to mark its fourth birthday, so we decided it was the perfect opportunity to make pumpkins together. I was so happy about the prospect of crocheting pumpkins, but even more so with friends in a cosy coffee shop. I found the pumpkin pattern really enjoyable and just couldn’t stop making them. I challenge you to just make one…. I was able to stop at four pumpkins, which are now sitting very pretty on our fireplace.

It’s now my plan to resume work on the beautiful sunburst granny square blanket, which you’ll find the pattern for here. Do you have any seasonal makes on your hook or needles? If so, I’d absolutely love to see them, please feel free to leave a link to your recent projects below. For all of you celebrating Halloween, have a spooktacular time and I’ll see you again soon.

Hello! It’s been a good day so far today. The sun is finally shining in Somerset (after what feels like weeks of rain) and I’ve just launched a new product. I love designing stationery, particularly Children’s stationery as I feel it allows me to be extra playful with my designs. All of my designs derive from hand drawing, later to be skilfully manipulated on the computer, printed, photographed and listed on my two online shops (Etsy and Notonthehighstreet). There is only one person employed at Rosefinch Studio (good old me), meaning it can often take some time for new products to be launched.

These ‘Personalised Children’s Party Bag Thank You Tags’ may just be one of my most favourite products yet, I just love how pretty they are. If you’re wondering what their exact purpose is, let me explain. Typically at children’s parties, theres a tradition of giving party bags to their friends as a thank you (and for transporting left over birthday cake in of course). I thought it’d be really lovely to offer personalised gift tags complete with twine for adorning such party bags.

My party bag tags can be personalised which definitely adds a unique touch. The large number at the top of the tag represents the child’s age. There’s a sweet message underneath that (which can also be personalised), thanking their friend for celebrating their birthday party with them, followed by a ‘from’, allowing the birthday child to include their name. Each tag comes complete with twine, available in a variety of colours.

As you can see, the tags are very floral. The hearts and polkadots look very pretty surrounding the flowers and the bird seen perching on the flower cluster finishes the design off I think. My next plan is to extend my range of gift tags as I really enjoyed designing and producing these. You just don’t seem to see anything of this kind in mainstream shops, which to me, makes it very desirable as I love unique products.

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear from you! Do you have a party coming up? If so, happy party planning and feel free to have a browse in my Etsy and Notonthehighstreet shops for personalised party products.

Hello! In this post I’m going to show you how to make this delightful cake bunting you see here, with an easy to follow tutorial. If you have a special occasion coming up such as a birthday, wedding, christening, anniversary etc then this is perfect for you!

As you may have guessed from the above photographs, my Mother-in-law held a 60th birthday party over the weekend and I offered to bake her a cake. I was so happy when she accepted my offer, even more so when she told me she didn’t have anything specific in mind. This allowed me to have complete creative control which is perfect for me.

After spending weeks on Pinterest, I was feeling completely inspired (if not a little overwhelmed at the options) and I finally drew up a plan of what I wanted to do. As you can see from the pictures, I chose a simple vanilla layer cake with buttercream. I used a Primrose Bakery recipe from their first book, ‘Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery’ and can thoroughly recommend all of their books for reliable recipes. I also made some vanilla biscuits from ‘The Biscuiteers, Book of Iced Biscuits’ recipe book, which I can also thoroughly recommend if like myself, you have limited experience of making biscuits.

I decided to get creative with the biscuit recipe and add a fondant topping which the Biscuiteers recipe book does not cover. I purchased a set of inexpensive letter/number biscuit stamps from Amazon alongside some complimenting sugarcraft decorations for the cake and the biscuits.

Due to the amount of detail in the cake and biscuits, I opted for some simple fabric cake bunting in complimentary colours, which I am going to show you how to make here. I have a sewing machine, but I will openly admit I am not a huge fan of sewing. If you feel the same (I hear you), then this no sew fabric cake bunting is perfect for you.

To make this DIY No Sew Cake Bunting you’ll need the following materials:

To begin with, turn your iron on and decide which fabrics you intend on using. I opted for 7 triangles in 5 different colourways but you may decide to do this differently.

Turn your fabric onto the wrong side (the side not containing the pattern) and with your ruler and pencil, you’ll measure and mark off your first strip of fabric. Mine measured (Length) 18 centimetres x (Width) 10 centimetres. (As opposed to using a pencil, you can purchase a specific pen for drawing on fabric which allows any marks made to vanish. However, as the side we are drawing on is not visible, this isn’t necessary).

Once you’ve finished measuring your strips, take your fabric scissors and cut them out so you have something which resembles the pink piece of fabric shown below.

Now the iron should be hot, take your ironing board, fold the strip in half lengthways and iron, until you have something which resembles the pink strip of fabric below. If you have multiple strips, repeat this process for all of them.

Open each strip of fabric. You now need to measure and cut the bondaweb, positioning it textured side down on one side of the fold. You will need one piece of bondaweb per strip of fabric. If you have cut your fabric strips in accordance with the measurements specified above, each strip of bondaweb should measure (Length) 18 centimetres x (Width) 5 centimetres.

Once the bondaweb is positioned, take your iron and iron this onto the fabric. You must ensure you have measured the bondaweb to the exact size and there are no overlaps, otherwise this may leave a sticky residue on your iron, fabric and ironing board etc which will transfer.

Your strips should now resemble the ones shown in the above photograph. Take your paper scissors and cut out a triangular shape out of paper or card. This will be your template for each flag. My triangle measured 4 centimetres (at the widest part) and 4.5 centimetres in length, but they can be cut to any measurement within the size of the fabric strips.

Place the paper triangle template on your first strip of fabric and lightly draw around it. You can use a light coloured pencil to do this or a vanishing/air soluble fabric pen. Repeat the process until you have marked out all of your triangles on each strip of fabric. You can then begin cutting out your triangles which should resemble the ones shown above. (p.s the bunting is easier to assemble if the widest part of the triangle is positioned and cut on the fold of the fabric).

Once you’ve cut out all of your triangles, position them into the order you’d like them to be. Take your twine or string and cut to the width you’d like your bunting to be, ensuring you’ve left approximately 10 centimetres on each side for tying the bunting on to the sticks.

Once you’ve cut your thread or twine to size, take a darning needle and thread the twine/thread through each triangle one at a time. You can easily reposition the triangles during this stage if they are a little close together, so don’t worry. Once they are positioned how you’d like them, tie each end of the bunting onto your sticks – you can just tie a small knot around the end of each cake pop stick and this will be substantial. Any excess thread/twine can be cut off. I like to have some hanging down at each end but this is personal preference.

Voila! You’re now done and you can proudly position it on your cake! I hope your cake bunting looks beautiful. I’d love to see your creation, so feel free to post it here as a comment or hit the ‘hello’ button above to send me a photograph of it via email. Happy baking/crafting!

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know how much I enjoy crocheting in my spare time alongside running the party shop. I’ve recently started a new venture named Tea, Cake and Crochet, involving crochet lessons from home with the odd sweet treat… or two! (no need to worry at all though, I still absolutely adore parties so you can still visit my shop and blog for your regular party fix. I have some very exciting things planned for it this year, so please stay tuned!)

So, back to the star blanket…I’ve wanted to crochet one for a while now and some would say I am fairly late to the party. However, I’m so glad I did it. It was such an enjoyable make and it is absolutely perfect for experimenting with colour combinations. It didn’t use a lot of yarn at all, so it’s perfect for ‘stash busting.’ (in non crochet terms, using up leftover yarn which you have stashed away!)

Several months ago, I found out that a friend is expecting a baby boy. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to crochet a star blanket. It was a complete suprise, she did not have the slightest clue that I was crocheting it. Being such a regular social media user (particularly Instagram) it was very tempting to share my progress but I managed to resist as I didn’t want to ruin the suprise in any way! It was so worth it, as she sent me the loveliest message expressing her gratitude and sheer happiness about receiving it, which made it SO worthwhile.

Now it’s been safely received, I am really happy to share the final result with you. I used the Celeste Nursery Blanket pattern, written by Lynne Rowe. You can find this in Issue 47 of Inside Crochet Magazine. This issue is not available in stores any longer as it was published in 2013, but there are ways of downloading digital back issues. I used the ‘Pocketmags’ app on my iPhone and had no trouble with it at all (other apps available).

I decided to roll the blanket up and make a bow out of some lovely blue ribbon I had in my craft room. This seemed like the nicest way to present it. I then wrapped it in some blue tissue paper and enclosed one of my ‘with love greeting cards’ from my shop. Do you like it? It feels like a job very well done to me and I couldn’t have been happier with it! Do you have any crochet projects on your hook at the moment? Feel free to comment below so I can see them, I love to see what my readers are up to!

Several months ago I was approached by a local journalist who writes articles for a number of interior magazines. The journalist expressed a real interest in my house and asked if I would be interested in an upcoming magazine feature. At the time, it wasn’t yet decided which magazine it would be featured in (if any), but I was thrilled to later discover that ‘Your Home Magazine’ decided to run the feature in the ‘February 2017’ issue.

The journalist and photographer spent a whole day in my house once the house had been given the ‘go ahead’. Photographs were taken and a recorded interview was conducted, which would later be included in the magazine.

If you’re a regular reader, you may remember a craft room tour I gave you last June. I run the party business and blog full time from home, so it’s always been really important to me to make my surrounding space as inspiring and cosy as possible. I absolutely love prettifying my workspace and I’m constantly moving things around and adding more beautiful things to it. I treat the rest of my home very similar to this, as you may gather from the photographs, and I really do have a lot of fun with it.

Felix and Mabel took centre stage on one of the magazine photographs, so they are now famous, probably being admired by many… *giggles..* Blossom (our red miniature poodle, pictured left) was not living with us at the time, so she wasn’t included in the photo shoot. She’s not one to miss out though, so here she is pictured below, reading the article whilst Felix takes a long, lazy afternoon nap!

Mabel (pictured above) is certainly not one to miss out on a blog feature, so here she is posing in my craft room for you.

It really did mean a lot to be featured in the interiors magazine. Our experience of buying a new build house really wasn’t the best, and at times, I am happy to openly admit that it has been very testing. As first time buyers, our budget has been stretched which won’t come as a great suprise to anybody, so I feel we’ve had to work just that extra little bit harder to fill and decorate our four bedroom house.

In someways, this has worked out absolutely perfectly, as the house has had a lot personality and charm injected into it – something which can sometimes be more of a challenge to achieve when the house has been decorated out of a catalogue. I definitely have nothing against that way of decorating, but for somebody like myself who loves handmade touches – it couldn’t have worked out better.

After living in the house for what is coming up to two years this year, inevitably there are a few more things we would like to do to the house. This to me is quite comforting as I love a good ‘work in progress’ and it means everything can be well considered.

I have some really exciting things planned for my shop this year, particularly in terms of my stationery range, and I genuinely feel like it’s going to be the best year yet for my business. I hope you’ll stay with me to see where the year takes me! All the very best for 2017 and thank you for reading!

We had family visiting this Christmas and I decided to choose a variety of fun, creative tasks for us to share on the kitchen table on Christmas Eve. Alongside some mince pie baking and puzzle making, I bought a ‘Create A Treat’ gingerbread village decorating kit. This was so enjoyable and I was so pleased with the results, I just couldn’t wait to share the finished village with you!

The kit came complete with everything needed to assemble and decorate all of the (five) mini buildings within the gingerbread village. The gingerbread pieces were all flat packaged and were all carefully snapped into individual building pieces, later to be assembled with the use of the (rather yummy) icing. There was more than enough icing and plenty of very tasty sweeties…. (some of which didn’t quite make it onto the house, of course). The sweeties (Canadian) consisted of Jelly Hearts, Pucker Ups, Multicoloured Mini Beads and Jelly Beans… How yummy?!

Above, you will see a ‘Toy Shop’, ‘Chalet’, ‘Regular House’, ‘Gabled House’ and a ‘Building’ all lovingly assembled and decorated by myself and my lovely family on Christmas Eve. I think I’ve started a new Christmas Eve tradition and I hope to do the same next year with a different kit. Do you have any similar Christmas Eve traditions? Did you manage to do any Christmas Eve crafting? I’d love to know and I really hope you’ve enjoyed seeing our village. If only all villages were as sweet at this one!

Anyone who knows me well will know that I take any opportunity possible to host a party. I just absolutely love the excitement of the planning, the fun in preparing and decorating and the pure joy of seeing all of my guests enjoy themselves. It’s just an absolutely fabulous feeling and I’d probably host one a week if I was given the chance!

I set up a fortnightly crochet club whilst living in Bath, Somerset a few years ago and I’m really happy to say that it is still running on a regular basis. Last year we enjoyed a Christmas meal together at a local restaurant, but I thought it would be really lovely to host a Christmas house party this year. Andrew (my husband) and I moved away from Bath to buy our first house almost two years ago and we live in a fairly rural location. Most people travelled over an hour or more to get to us so I really wanted to show everybody how grateful I was for travelling so far and spending their weekend with us.

I have lots (some would say far too many) cookbooks in my personal collection. They really do come in handy at times like this. I flicked through them all a few days before the party and chose a few party nibble recipes. The day before the party (on the Friday morning), I woke up very early, did the food shopping and began preparation. I finally finished the preparation at 6:30pm the evening before the party and treated myself to a hearty portion of fish and chips and a large glass of wine afterwards… (which I have to say went down very well!)

The party menu consisted of:

Savoury Cheese Palmiers

Puff Pastry Sausage Rolls

Cheese Filled Christmas Tree Biscuits

Sweet Chilli, Cream Cheese, Basil and Tomato ‘Holly’ Biscuits

Cheese Selection

Mint Chocolate Cupcakes with Meri Meri ‘Nutcracker’ cupcake toppers

Chocolate Orange Layer Cake with ‘Christmas scene’ decorations

Hot Chocolate Decorating Station

Winter Mocktails

Sweet Chilli Crisps

Recipes were courtesy of the following books, which I thoroughly recommend for any party:

Cupcakes From The Primrose Bakery, Great British Bake Off: Children’s Party Bakes and Cakes, Home-Baked Gifts With Love: Marks and Spencer.

Notice one of our miniature poodles hiding underneath the table? Obviously all of the food preparation she did tired her out… *giggles. You’ll also probably notice the very grey weather outside. Luckily the party was indoors, so we didn’t need to worry too much about the rain outside (typical British weather for this time of year, which is perfect for feeling cosy indoors but can make photography rather challenging!)

Alongside the Winter ‘Mocktails’ I thought a ‘Hot Chocolate Bar’ would be a fabulous idea. I had some Whittards Luxury Hot Chocolate in the cupboard, so this was made with milk and served with a very generous amount of cream. My guests then helped themselves to a rather indulgent selection of chocolates, mini gingerbread men and marshmallows. All of this was served in my rather beautiful Cath Kidston trays and Santa mugs.

When Andrew and I lived in London several years ago, we started a tradition of going to see the Nutcracker Ballet on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately since moving to the South West, we haven’t been able to keep the tradition. As soon as I saw these Meri Meri cupcake toppers, the happy memories rushed back and I just had to have them. They looked beautiful and were very well received by our friends.

For the cake, I used a Ginger Ray ‘Merry Christmas’ cake bunting topper, which did a perfect job of helping a standard chocolate cake stand out on a Christmas party table. I also used some edible toadstools and non edible reindeers to finish the Winter scene. The red, green and white sprinkles and chocolate orange Lindt balls were extra additions I added to give the cake that extra special touch.

My friend of 15 years, Laurie (left) stayed with me (right) this weekend before starting an exciting new life in Dubai, so here we are posing for a photograph before the party (and enjoying a festive tipple or two) before the guests arrived! My Mum kindly sent the miniature poodles some Christmas jumpers, just to ensure they were dressed for the occasion (of course).

Here are some of the beautiful gifts I was given at the party. Many people also bought useful items along with them which were used at the party and were very well received. One of my other gifts (not pictured as of yet) is now living on our Christmas tree! This was a crocheted tree decoration wrapped in beautiful tissue paper. I adore handmade gifts and it will be treasured for years to come! How special is that?

I’m pleased to say that the party was a huge success and we all had an absolute blast. So much so, we completely forgot to take photographs after this point… doh! (a sign of good times, hey?!) Do you have a party (or two) planned this Christmas? If so, have a super duper time and I really hope you enjoyed seeing lots of snippets of ours!

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you in 2017 and thank you for all of your support this year.

Happy Thursday all! Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time will know how much I love baking. Are you one of those bakers who has a certain speciality in the kitchen? My speciality used to be cupcakes, but nowadays I seem to get so much more excited from layer cakes (terrible for my waistline, I know!) I first tried my first slice of lemon cake last year in a local cafe. It was truly delicious and I kept going back for more. Fast forward a few months later and they stopped baking it. I thought I’d try baking it myself at home as I was hosting a small party. It was such a success and it was truly enjoyed by all. I’ve been making it ever since and it’s become a regular in this household! Would you like to know the recipe? Read on!

Firstly, I have two variations depending on how I’m feeling. Both versions are layer cakes made using the same sponge recipe but I alternate the icing technique.

One version is a lemon drizzle topping with small individual swirls of buttercream and sprinkles for decoration, alongside a few tablespoons of lemon curd and full layer of buttercream in between the sponge layers. (shown in the first photo above)

If I’m feeling like making the other version, I replace the lemon drizzle topping with a full layer of buttercream. I place a few tablespoons of lemon curd in between the sponge layers, alongside a second layer of buttercream. I finish this off with some sugarpaste flowers and sprinkles to give it a bit of colour. (shown in the first two photo’s below)

Feeling inspired? Here’s the recipe…..

Ingredients

For the Cake:

Butter 250g, plus a little extra for greasing the tin

Golden Caster Sugar, sifted 250g

Self-Raising Flour, sifted 250g

Baking Powder, sifted 1 tsp

Organic Free Range Eggs 4 large

Lemons 2, zested

Semi Skimmed or Whole Milk, 1 tbsp

Choose either of the following:

For the Filling and Topping of the Lemon Drizzle/Buttercream Swirls Version:

Lemons 4 (2 for the buttercream icing, 2 for the lemon drizzle)

Caster Sugar 85g

Butter 125g

Icing Sugar, sifted 250g

Lemon Curd 4 tbsp

Cake Sprinkles

For the Filling and Topping of the Buttercream/Sugarcraft Flowers Version:

Butter 250g

Icing Sugar, sifted 500g

Lemons 3, zested and juiced

Lemon Curd 4 tbsp

Sugarcraft Flowers and/or Cake Sprinkles

Piping Bag and Star Nozzle

Method

Step 1

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter, line and flour the bases of 2 x 20cm sandwich tins. Beat the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs and lemon zest together until your batter is of a smooth consistency. Add the milk slowly until the cake batter glides off of a spoon.

Step 2

Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake for 20-25 minutes. When they’re ready, a skewer or cake tester poked in should come out clean. Cool on wire racks for 5 minutes.

Step 3

Choose either of the following:

For the Filling and Topping of the Lemon Drizzle/Buttercream Swirls Version:

Make the icing by beating the soft butter with the icing sugar, lemon zest and juice from 2 lemons until light and fluffy. Spread half of this mixture over the top of the cake. Spread the lemon curd on top of this.

Take your second layer and place this on top. Gently prick this top layer all over with a skewer or fork.

Make the lemon drizzle topping by mixing together the lemon juice of 2 remaining lemons, alongside the caster sugar. Pour the drizzle over the cake, the juice will sink into it and the sugar will form a sweet, crisp topping.

Once the lemon drizzle topping has set, insert the star nozzle into the piping bag and fill this with the remaining buttercream icing. Make a series of small buttercream swirls around the outside of the cake. Add sprinkle/s to each swirl if you wish.

For the Filling and Topping of the Buttercream/Sugarcraft Flowers Version:

Make the icing by beating the soft butter with the icing sugar, lemon zest and juice until light and fluffy.

Divide the buttercream icing into half. Spread one half of it over the bottom layer of the cake. Spread the lemon curd on top of this.

Take the other layer and place it on top of the layer you’ve just finished. Gently spread the remaining buttercream on top of this layer. Decorate with sprinkles and/or sugarcraft flowers.

Voila! Enjoy. If you’ve made this cake, do let me know as I’d love to see it and hear your feedback. You can share photographs of your creation on my Facebook page if you like. Happy baking and see you soon!

Hello all! First of all I would just like to apologise for the slightly longer than expected delay in updating my blog. You may have seen my earlier post about the new build house we moved into last August? Anybody who has bought a house will understand the upheaval and its possible effect on day-to-day living. In our case, we’ve had builders in pretty much every day over the course of a year, yes really! Well, that aside… whilst I’ve been trading during this time making beautiful party decorations and stationery for my Etsy and Notonthehighstreet shops, my blog has been somewhat neglected. This is now set to change as I am back in action, yay!

So, I’ve made a few changes to my workspace over the past week. I ran out of space in my original room and we are lucky enough to have a few spare rooms. I thought this post would be the perfect opportunity to give you a little tour of my new craft room, how does that sound?

My pegboard from Block Design has got to be my most favourite item in the entire room. It’s super handy for storing all of my craft accessories, particularly the ones I use every day. Obviously no peg board is complete without pretty things… You know those things which you don’t actually use on a daily basis but just like to admire?…. (phew, glad I’m not the only one!)

You can see a close up here. I’ve used blu-tack to display my favourite prints. As it takes centre stage in my room, I wanted it to look vibrant and cheerful and I think it looks just that!

No craft room is complete without a companion, right? For those of you who don’t know, this is our rather adorable Mabel. Mabel is our 1 year old miniature poodle and is wonderful company. She also has a nephew called Felix, who is our much loved 2 year old miniature poodle. Together they are double the trouble but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here they are together, striking a pose!

Luckily, the craft room is big enough to house two ikea desks. The one shown above is for crafting and drawing. I love my trusty desk storage as it keeps everything nice and tidy and very easy to reach. No drawing space would be complete without pretty decorations above it and some gorgeous eye candy in the form of a jug of flowers, would it? The desk to the left of this houses my iMac, printer, scanner, camera and all other technical equipment.

Opposite my two work desks are a number of trusty ikea shelves which house all of my craft materials, tools and accessories, packaging, books and magazines etc. Even though this is a really functional space, it’s important to me that it remains beautiful, so I like to have lots of handmade touches scattered around that area to cheer me up.

I love listening to the radio when I’m working. We live in such a peaceful area, it’s nice to have a bit of background noise to keep me inspired. The trolley shown above houses all of my glittered and patterned papers, stationery, scissors and all sorts of other handy bits. As you can probably tell, the shelves have pretty much reached full capacity now and there are still lots of things stored on the floor! Eventually, I’d like to have another form of storage in here, but it feels perfectly workable right now. The large jars you may be able to spot are from our wedding a few years ago, they were used for tasty sweets and have now taken on the role of craft storage!

Both of my desks face the window and it’s really nice having some green space to look at every now and then. It’s a nice little reminder that I live in Somerset and it’s one of the most beautiful places to live in the country. In the winter I like to light tealight candles whilst I’m working (and I have been known to get the fairy lights out too!) This just makes the room feel extra cosy and perfect for working in whilst sipping a lovely hot chocolate loaded with marshmallows of course!

The memo board opposite my desk is super handy for staying organised. I usually stick floral post it notes to it. I added my own ribbon to it which seemed a bit more unique than the standard brown twine which it came with. Not that I have anything against twine – I love it, as you can see from the other photos!

We have the most comfiest crocheting spot upstairs, in what we call the ‘daybed room’ which is located opposite my craft space. Whenever we have visitors, this is where they stay. I have a fair few of my handmade cushions in here and it’s just a really lovely, peaceful space to have a break in during the day. Usually you’ll find Felix and Mabel snoozing in here during the day. Felix likes to throw all of the cushions all over the floor… just to make things extra comfy I imagine! (It’s a dog’s life) I have been told by a few people that this room has reached its maximum cushion capacity…. Is there even such a thing?

That’s all from me for now, although I couldn’t help but share this photo of Mabel with you, doing what she does best…. posing! I hope you’ve enjoyed having a peek into where Paper Doily Party Shop is based. Happy crafting!

I’m happy to announce that I have just launched a new collection of ‘Will you be my…?’ Wedding cards, yay! I really love designing stationery. Anything floral and pastel coloured makes me very excited and since my own wedding in 2014, I’ve been very interested in wedding stationery.

My greetings card designs generally begin with some initial sketches. I then use my trusty lightbox and a black pen to refine my drawings ready for scanning. I then use a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, which is where most of the fun happens. I’m lucky enough to own a professional printer which means I can print most of my cards from the comfort of my own craft room. This is really handy in terms of personalisation, as additional names and colours can easily be added! It also means that I can launch several designs at once to learn what the most popular designs are.

This is the main design, isn’t it lovely? I loved the design so much, I’ve used the same one throughout all of these three cards, but have changed the text on each one. Here’s the first one:

What are your thoughts? Did you send any bridesmaid cards for your wedding, or are you planning to? I had small wedding, so despite having some of my closest friends there along with my family, I didn’t have any bridesmaids. However, I can totally appreciate how absolutely lovely it is to have them and to treat them to special cards like these!

Now for this version. There are some absolutely adorable images online of flower girls and there is some beautiful stationery to match also. I warn you though, once you get started on those wedding blogs, you can say goodbye to a good few hours! I can imagine this flower girl card being perfect for a lovely little girl.

Last but certainly not least, is the maid of honour version. I’m an avid Instagram user and have noticed an increase in brides-to-be having maid’s of honour. Have you? I really hope these cards are a success. Even if they put a smile on one special person’s face on opening, that’s my job done! Do keep your eyes peeled as I am looking to expand my range on Etsy and Notonthehighstreet.